Poultry are conventionally slaughtered by first electrically stunning each bird in turn and then killing the stunned birds by cutting their necks. The purpose of stunning its to ensure that the birds feel no pain when they are killed. The problem arises however that the stunning process is itself stressful. The electrical stunning procedure involves removing birds from a transport crate, individually shackling them by their legs, conveying each shackled bird to an electric stunning bath in which the head of the bird is immersed in water which acts as the live electrode and current passes through the bird to earth via the shackle. Birds sometimes experience electric shocks before being stunned which can be distressing, and some birds miss the water of the stunner altogether and in this way are conscious during slaughter. The electrical stunning in itself causes electropletic convulsions, which result in haermorrhaging in the muscles of the breast and legs, and broken bones in the carcasses, particularly the collar region.